City Council

Village of South Blooming Grove special MEETING VIA WEBINAR Tuesday February 8, 2022 11:00 AM  Call to order Mayor Kalaj called to order the Village Special Board Meeting at 11:02 am on February 8, 2022, via Zoom Webinar ID: 8241 5317 668 for the Village of South Blooming Grove located at 819 State Route 208, within the Village of South Blooming Grove, and having a mailing address of Monroe, New York.  Roll call The following persons were present: o Mayor’s George Kalaj – Mayor o Abraham Weiss – Deputy Mayor o Yitzchok Feldman– Trustee o Asher Guttman - Trustee o Zalmon Rosner – Trustee o Isaac Ekstein – Legislative Aide to Mayor o Al Fusco, Village Engineer Absent o Scott B. Ugell, Esq. – Village Attorney o Joel Stern – Confidential Assistant to Mayor  Discussion: o Village Engineer explained that we have been working on emergency water for the village for quite some time. We have discussion with the Health Department and with the current owners of wells that could help us out. As you know better than he does but for the benefit of the public, we don’t have totally reliable water sources, they are taxed, in fact when we do have issues such as water main breaks, etc. we have had to truck in very expensive water in order to keep up the potable water for the village district. At this time we have looked at it long and hard and we do have a grant pending, that we haven’t heard from yet, that could help us as well and that would give us major improvements throughout the entire district and the village and we are waiting for that. At the direction of the board we pursued to look at emergency wells, these wells have already been dug, they have been tested both for quality and quantity and he has had discussion with the Orange County Department of Health in regard to this. We have negotiated with the owners of the wells, one of the things that we have to do, according to the Orange County Department of Health is the village has to take ownership of 100 feet around the wells and we have to have quality control for 200 feet around. Which basically means you can’t have a septic. We are going to work on that which the next step would be to do a subdivision of the wells so that we have access to those wells that we can submit to the health department. We have received authorization from the board to proceed with this. Myself and subcontractors C & S Engineers 1  Village of South Blooming Grove special MEETING VIA WEBINAR Tuesday February 8, 2022 11:00 AM are preparing the connections to the wells, the rest of the material that we need to do in relationship to making an application both to the health department and to the NYS DEC to take and utilize this, it is also going to include some treatment and we do have an escrow account promised from the owners to help us in that regard. What we are here for today is to do an emergency resolution whereby we have authorized the mayor and myself to proceed with this project on an emergency basis. We also have submitted some SEQRA data that has been sent to all of you and we are going to declare ourselves lead agency and also we are going to say there is a negative declaration, that what we are going to do is not going to impact the environment. We are going to be cutting some trees down, we are going to be roughing in a road so that we can get access to put pipelines in and also to connect the wells and to get electric in and things of that nature. We have done SEQRA in addition we will have resolutions declaring the village board lead agency and also the negative declaration. There is basically 3 resolutions, one is the emergency, the second is the lead agency and the third is the negative declaration. He will discuss the other project later, but on this regard, we can get started and we can get the trees removed before March 31, 2022 and then we will proceed with the balance. We are currently in design at this time. o Trustee Guttman asked when you mention the infrastuction are you talking about a six million dollar grant that we have applied to before. Mr. Fusco replied exactly, we haven’t heard word on that yet, it is a three million dollar grant and a three million dollar low interest loan. Nobody has heard yet which is not unusual and they only gave us six weeks to do it and was submitted November 18, 2022. o Trustee Feldman asked if there are any time frames that the village has to abide by, when this needs to be happening. Mr. Fusco advised that there are contractors ready on the end of Arlington to start doing some tree removal and that is why we called this as an emergency meeting. We still have a lot of time before we actually start hooking up the wells and things of that nature. He will be back to the board with a subdivision program where would take 100 feet around all the wells and get easements on the roadway to install pipes. Probably within a week or two. Mr. Ekstein clarified that the tree removal and clearance of the road needs to happen before April 1, 2022. Mr. Fuco confirmed and said that they would like to start virtually tomorrow. o Deputy Mayor Weiss asked if there would be a filter system built for the wells. Mr. Fusco advised yes, there will be one filter system for the three wells. The wells have a couple of issues, they have manganese and iron and they have some turbidity wo there will be a treatment system as part of these three wells. Mr. Weiss asked who will provide the filter system. Mr. Fusco advised that that would be provided by the existing owners of the property. The village will be doing the design, they have put up escrow accounts for the village to do the design work to get this done and they will be doing the installation under our inspection. Mr. Weiss asked who would be doing the maintenance? Mr. Fusco replied that the maintenance would be the village’s responsibility to begin with and ultimately these lines would probably be turned all over to the village at some point. Mr. Ekstein added that the property is actually going to be on the village’s name, the deed on the property is going to be the Village of South Blooming Grove. The 2  Village of South Blooming Grove special MEETING VIA WEBINAR Tuesday February 8, 2022 11:00 AM ownership of the wells is going to be the Village of South Blooming Grove. The installation, the cost of the installation is being done by the developers under the inspection of the village. Trustee Guttman asked that after having these wells, will the Village of South Blooming Grove be out of this emergency use of water/restrictions of water. Al Fusco stated that when this is all done and we are authorized to throw the switch from the Department of Health, yes, we will be out of restrictions. That doesn’t mean we are done. We still have to take hopefully that other Three-Million Dollar grant and Three Million Dollar loan and develop future wells as well. These wells are going to be need in conjunction with that. We are going to have these wells which will cover the entire system and our existing wells which will back up our entire system. We are going to be in really good shape once this is done. This doesn’t mean we are going to stop, we still have to get at least 2 or 3 more very good wells and we are pursuing that as part of the grant. Mayor Kalaj asked what the capacity of these well, an approximate is fine. Al Fusco advised over 300,000 gallons a day. Trustee Guttman asked how much are we using now. Al Fusco advised 300,000 gallons a day approximately. Mayor Kalaj advised that we would be doubling the capacity. Mr. Fusco advised we will need new wells to replace these when we take over the development so we have to keep that in mind, you can’t stop you have to continue. Mr. Ekstein asked Mr. Fusco about one more well that is on parkland that is on top of that which they are not talking about right now. Al Fusco said we are not but that would take over 700,00 gallons of water when we get to that but we are not discussing that now although we are planning for that.  Correspondence o Memorandum from Village Treasurer requesting permission to attend the New York Government Finance Association’s Annual Conference to be held April 6-8, 2022 in Albany, New York.  Business o Resolution No. (004) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove authorizing the Mayor sign any and all documents to move forward with the emergency water well connections. Motion to accept by Trustee Rosner, seconded by Deputy Mayor Weiss, 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner. o Resolution No. (005) - Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove declaring the Village Board’s intent to be lead agency for the SEQRA review of the village emergency well/water use. Motion to accept by Trustee Guttman, seconded by Deputy Mayor Weiss. 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner. o Resolution No. (006) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove determined that the emergency water well will not result in any significant impact to the environment. Motion to accept by Trustee Guttman, seconded by Mayor Kalaj. 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner. o Al Fusco advised that the village street light project was initiated by the Board, Joel and Isaac have been working on it. We have a grant through DASNY in order to put up some streetlights. In order to get the grant, Kerry has been working on a lot of paperwork along with Fusco’s office and they have come to the point where they need to do SEQRA, an environmental review of this. We have a resolution for intent to be lead agency by the Village Board, so the Village Board will be lead agency on this project and we need to do a resolution of intent to be lead agency that will be sent out 3  Village of South Blooming Grove special MEETING VIA WEBINAR Tuesday February 8, 2022 11:00 AM to interested, involved parties and in thirty (30) days from now we will be able to declare lead agency and do a direct negative declaration on environmental impact on the streetlights so that we can proceed, get the grant and go to bid. o Resolution No. (007) – Resolution of the Village Board of the Village of South Blooming Grove declaring its intent to be Lead Agency for the SEQRA review of the village street light project. Motion to accept by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Trustee Rosner. 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner. o Resolution (008) of the Village of South Blooming Grove setting a time and place for a public hearing regarding Religious Use Special Permit for 55 Mangin Road on February 28, 2022, at 8:01 pm. Motion to accept by Trustee Rosner, seconded by Trustee Feldman. 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner.  Abstract o Motion to adopt the abstract by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Deputy Mayor Weiss. 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner. o  Adjournment o Motion to close the meeting at 11:21 a.m. by Mayor Kalaj, seconded by Trustee Rosner. 5 Ayes, Mayor Kalaj, Deputy Mayor Weiss, Trustee Feldman, Trustee Guttman and Trustee Rosner. Minutes respectfully submitted by Kerry Dougherty, Village Clerk 4